Andrea-Teresa Arenas & Eloisa Gómez

press release: The Wisconsin Historical Society, Somos Latinas Digital History Project participants, coordinators, volunteers, and partners, and the Wisconsin Book Festival invite you to celebrate the progress of this important oral history project. Doors open at 12:30 p.m. followed by a 1 p.m. celebration conversation in the auditorium, light refreshments and a book signing. Celebrants will have an opportunity to learn about how the Somos Latinas Collection of oral histories, begun in 2012, will be shared with the public and schools, to view the premiere of video-based interviews, to explore the first copies of the Somos Latinas book by Wisconsin Historical Society Press, to peruse Chican@ and Latin@ history with online displays by the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium, Chicanas Por Mi Raza, to meet the Chican@ and Latin@ Studies students who interviewed the 45 Somos women who made history, and to celebrate the Chican@ and Latin@ women who did so much with so little.

Celebrated Latina civil rights activist and foreword writer Dolores Huerta once said, "Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.â€ These are the stories of some of the Latina activists from Wisconsin who have lived Huerta's words. Somos Latinas shares the powerful narratives of 25 activists from outspoken demonstrators to collaborative community-builders to determined individuals working for change behind the scenes- providing proof of the long-standing legacy of Latina activism throughout Wisconsin. Somos Latinas draws on activist interviews conducted as part of the Somos Latinas Digital History Project, housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society, and looks deep into the life and passion of each woman.

Andrea-Teresa Arenas, PhD, recently retired from her positions at UW-Madison as a Chican@ and Latin@ Studies Faculty Affiliate and the director of the Office of Service Learning and Community-Based Research in the College of Letters & Science. She is currently the director of the Somos Latinas Digital History Project.

Eloisa Gomez is the director of the Milwaukee County UW-Extension Office. From 2008 to 2012, she was the vice president of the Latino Historical Society of Wisconsin, and she served on the Somos Latinas Advisory Committee from 2012 to 2015.